A convicted inmate in Arizona has asked the state's Supreme Court to override the law and schedule his execution before officials do.
Aaron Brian Gunches, 53, had previously forced the state to carry out his execution after his conviction in the 2002 murder of his girlfriend's ex-husband, Ted Price, to which he pleaded guilty. He will be killed by lethal injection.
Grunches' execution will be Arizona's first use of the death penalty since a two-year moratorium on execution procedures.
In a handwritten court filing this week, Gunches, who is not a lawyer but a freelancer, asked the federal high court to schedule his execution in mid-February.
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Aaron Brian Gunches was convicted of murder for the 2002 murder of Ted Price in Maricopa County, Arizona. (Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry via AP)
He said that his death sentence is “long overdue” and said that the state is facilitating the process by asking the court to have a system of informing the lawyers before he is sentenced.
The office of Democrat Attorney General Kris Mayes, who is conducting the execution of Gunches, said a plan must be put in place to ensure that corrections officers meet the requirements for execution, including testing for the pentobarbital that will be used for his lethal injection.
Two years ago, Gunches asked the state Supreme Court to issue a warrant for his execution on the grounds that justice would be served and the victim's family would be given closure.
Alabama's lethal injection chamber is on display Oct. 7, 2002, at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama. (AP)
Gunches' execution was scheduled for April 2023 before the office of Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs said the state was not yet ready to issue the death penalty because it did not have personnel with experience in murder.
Hobbs has vowed not to impose death sentences until there is hope that the state can do it without breaking any laws. Hobbs ordered a review that ended in November when he fired the retired magistrate judge he had appointed to lead the review.
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File: A gurney in the execution chamber at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Oklahoma. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
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Arizona has 111 inmates on death row, but it last carried out executions in 2022, when three inmates were executed, after a nearly eight-year moratorium prompted by criticism that a 2014 execution was botched and difficult to obtain lethal injections.
The state has faced criticism for taking too long to administer an IV for a lethal injection to a death row inmate.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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